This bridge, also known as the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge or just the Skyway, spans the Lower Tampa Bay and connects St. Petersburg, Florida, to Terra Ceia, Florida. It is a cable-stayed bridge that was built in the 1960s. The current Sunshine Skyway, which was built in 1987, is the second bridge of the same name to be built on the location. It was designed by the Figg & Muller Engineering Group and constructed by the American Bridge Company, and it is widely regarded as a symbol of the state’s history.
Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Manatee counties are served by the four-lane bridge, which carries Interstate 275 and United States Route 19, as well as several state highways. In addition, it is a toll road, with a $1.50 toll charged on two-axle vehicles moving in either way and paid either with cash or through the state’s SunPass payment system.
After its first opening in 1954, the original bridge served as the location of two significant marine disasters within a few months of each other in 1980. The United States Coast Guard Cutter Blackthorn collided with the tanker Capricorn near the bridge in January 1980, resulting in the sinking of the cutter and the deaths of 23 crew members. A sudden squall caused the collision of the freighter MV Summit Venture with a bridge support in May 1980, causing the southbound span of the bridge to collapse and the deaths of 35 individuals who were trapped in their automobiles as they dropped into Tampa Bay below. It took only a few years for the damaged section to be dismantled, the remaining span to be partially demolished and converted into an extensive fishing pier, and the current bridge to be constructed.
During the year 1924, a realtor by the name of J.G. “Jim” Foley and his business partner Charles R. Carter would join forces with an attorney by the name of James E. Bussey to form the Bee Line Ferry Company. The service would begin on March 7, 1927, and would initially consist of two ferries: the Fred D. Doty and the City of Wilmington, which would later be renamed the Pinellas. The ferry would run from the end of what is today Bay Vista Park in St. Petersburg to Piney Point on the opposite side of the bay, where it would drop passengers off.
In 1926, a physiotherapist from St. Petersburg by the name of Dr. Herman Simmonds would suggest the construction of a “high-level suspension bridge.” Dr. Herman Simmonds, a physiotherapist from St. Petersburg, would receive legislative approval and a permit from the United States War Department to construct a bridge, but his plans would be destroyed when the Great Depression began in 1929.
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